


Skull & Bones

by afteriwake



Series: Mix & Match [3]
Category: Sherlock (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Soulmates, Background Case, Depressed Molly Hooper, F/M, First Day At Work, First Meetings, Heartbreaking, Love at First Sight, Other Additional Tags to Be Added, POV Molly Hooper, Purple Tattoo, Romantic Soulmates, Sherlock runs away, Skull & Bones Tattoo, Soulmate-Identifying Marks, St Bartholomew's Hospital
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-03-07
Updated: 2019-03-07
Packaged: 2019-11-13 06:56:21
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 507
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18026927
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/afteriwake/pseuds/afteriwake
Summary: Molly's had half a skull & crossbones tattoo on her wrist for as long as she could remember, but she's given up on ever finding her soulmate. Worse, when she finallydoes, and the tattoos turn purple to indicate love at first sight, her soulmate runs away without looking at her. But a case brings them together, whether he wants it to or not, and perhaps he finds she's not so bad a soulmate after all...





	Skull & Bones

**Author's Note:**

  * For [CreativeReading](https://archiveofourown.org/users/CreativeReading/gifts), [Dreamin](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Dreamin/gifts).



> This fic was requested by **CreativeReading** , who wanted a Sherlolly fic with the trope combination _case fic and love at first sight_. I also added a soulmate AU prompt I had (" _Your tattoo is only half complete and it completes itself the moment you find your soulmate, like if you had half a heart, you’d get a full heart on your skin._ "). Hopefully, this will be finished this month, as I don't intend for it to be very long.

She had always wondered why she had half a skull and crossbones tattoo on her inner wrist. Well, she knew it had to do with soulmates, and that when she met hers it would be filled, but why a skull and crossbones? She was interested in forensic pathology, she supposed, which made the morbid tattoo more apt, but the crossbones? That was a pirate thing.

Still, long-sleeved shirt and oversized, frumpy jumpers covered the mark on her wrist, and it kept people from asking nosy questions. Everyone, or at least _almost_ everyone, had half a tattoo on her wrist. Her father had been an exception, not having a tattoo on the underside of his wrist at all, but he had loved her mum and would have gladly given her up if she’d ever found her soulmate, but she loved him too and they’d had her and a bit of a life together before he died.

She’d always wondered if he never had a mark because he was fated to die before his soulmate found him. Morbid thoughts like that had kept her awake at night for a long time after his death when she was a young girl. Now she just ignored anything to do with fate and whatnot and focused on cold, hard facts. Science didn’t scare her because science was known yet ever-changing, and nothing was set in stone.

She’d just started her post at Barts, observing the current specialist registrar for a time before she took over the duties so Dr. Tambor could go off and work on other aspects of medicine. She had some time at this post before it was her own time to go off and settle in another aspect of medicine for research purposes, but she was determined to enjoy this post while she could.

“Tambor!” she heard a man yell as the doors to her morgue flung open. She had the scalpel in her hand and turned, ready to strike, when she felt a burning on her wrist. She dropped the scalpel and covered her tattoo with one hand while she watched the young man in the purple shirt and Belstaff coat do the same. “Bloody hell...”

“Soulmate?” she squeaked out.

After a moment the pain receded and he looked at his wrist, pulling down the sleeves of his shirt and coat to do so. “Why is it in colour?”

She frowned, then looked at her own. The other half of her tattoo was filled in now, but it was purple. Then she looked at him and this feeling of...something...swept over her. “Love at first sight.”

He avoided her gaze, turning without ever looking at her. “I can’t...it would be a distraction...you could...” He murmured those words as he turned on heel and left the morgue. She felt her heart shatter at that; her soulmate didn’t want her. Didn’t even want to look at her when they were fated for love at first sight.

Never before had she hated this soul mate system so much…


End file.
